Kentucky celebrates former coach, player John Schlarman with Kroger Field poster
The University of Kentucky on Tuesday unveiled a large poster honoring former offensive line coach and football player John Schlarman.
The poster, displayed in the Gate 12 plaza of Kroger Field, facing the Joe Craft Indoor Training Facility, features 12 lines of text with the phrase “Schlarman Strong,” which became a mantra for the football team the last couple of seasons while Schlarman was battling cancer. Schlarman’s jersey number, 65, is displayed in large font with a quote from Schlarman — “You come together, nobody can stop you.” — printed in front of two images; one shows Schlarman on the sideline coaching, another shows him celebrating with the team following its win last season at Tennessee, Kentucky’s first in Knoxville since the 1980s.
A logo for “The Big Blue Wall,” the name by which UK’s nationally recognized offensive line came to be known under Schlarman, is displayed in the left corner. The unveiling was attended by members of his family, including his wife LeeAnne, and UK’s football team.
In a social media post announcing the new display, the UK football program called it “a first step in honoring the legacy of Coach Schlarman.”
Schlarman was part of Mark Stoops’ original staff at Kentucky in 2013, and remained the offensive line coach under Stoops until his death last November following a battle with a rare form of liver cancer. He received the diagnosis in 2018.
UK football over the summer renamed its annual golf scramble in Schlarman’s honor, and plans to allow players to continue rotating his jersey number with their own in games this season for as long as the Southeastern Conference permits it to do so. Other tributes are in the planning stages.
“We will find the right way to honor him and do that,” Stoops said in June. “Believe me, we love him.”
Schlarman, a Fort Thomas native, was an offensive lineman at UK from 1993-1997. He was a graduate assistant at the school from 2000-2002 before local high school coaching stints at Campbell County (2003-2004) and Newport (2005-2006). He was the offensive line coach at Troy University from 2007-2012.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 2:23 PM.
